Thanks!

Just to say thank you to those of you who have started to follow / read this blog.

It's been a very busy year on the non-walking/cooking front leaving me with rather less time than I thought I would have had for this.

However, I should now have more time which means that there will be plenty of things to come next year. Enjoy Christmas and New Year and I'll see you in January!

                  

A Penshurst Loop

Just a quick trip report this one. I've been meaning to do it for a few weeks but stuff has just kept getting in the way.

A good walk with some friends around a rather muddy Kent. Loop from Penshurst via Chiddingstone. Pictures below:

Lovely crisp winters day..

Swans on a pond

Chiddingstone Church

Autumnal tree

Oast House

The flock...

The Chidingstone itself

Old pill box

Ramshakle building

Peahen

Penshurst Place

Inside Penshurst Church

Duck with an Orange and Juniper Sauce

Duck and orange - a classic combination...So, why mess about with it?

Well, I don't know about you, but, personally I find that an orange sauce by itself can be a bit too sweet and the juniper just cuts through the sweetness without overpowering the duck. I'd love to show you a picture but for some reason I never took one...Sorry.


First up - the duck. I roasted off a couple of duck breasts. Just for the record I only had one hot with the sauce, the other was allowed to cool and made a wonderful sandwich the next day...

Anyway, take the breasts, score the skin a few times and then place skin side down in a medium-hot frying pan. Allow them to cook for 5 minutes so the skin is nicely coloured and then turn them over just long enough to seal the other side of the breasts. Take them out of the pan and place on a roasting tray and put in the oven 180C for 18 minutes for well done. I know some people say you can have duck rare but I prefer mine well done and these came out with just a hint of pink and very juicy still. Allow 10 minutes to rest before serving.


Secondly - the sauce. This will do enough for 2.  Take a pan and melt a decent sized knob of butter and then mix in some sugar. Add to this a generous slug of Triple-Sec, the juice of a large orange, half a dozen crushed juniper berries and 1 egg yolk (as you may have guessed - if I'm not baking I don't tend to measure much). Mix together well and keep mixing whilst the sauce reduces. When it has reached the right consistency (think runny honey) it's ready to use (just remember to pass it through a sieve in order to separate out the berries along with any bits of orange, pips etc...).

Enjoy!

Shortbread...

...and an apology as I've not done much recently. One thing I have done though is to bake some batches of shortbread. No photos for these (and to be honest they looked like shortbread). Simple, easy to make and very moreish though.


Almond Shortbread:

175g plain flour
50g ground almonds
50g caster sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
150g unsalted butter

Mix the dry ingredients and then add the butter (easiest with a food mixer but you can do rub it in by hand) until you get a breadcrumb appearance.

Squeeze this all together to get your "dough". Then simply roll out to about 1cm thick and cut out the shapes you want. I usually use a 2inch pastry cutter. Place on a baking sheet and into the oven for about 20 minutes at 160C.
Place on a rack, dust with caster sugar and allow to cool.


Melt in the mouth Lemon Shortbread:

250g unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
250g plain flour
125g polenta
pinch of salt
zest of 2 lemons
1/2 tsp lemon extract

Cream the butter and sugar, add the lemon zest and extract, then slowly add in the flour, polenta and salt until they come together as a dough. chill for 30 minutes then roll it out and cut to shape as above. However, these go in the oven for 15 minutes at 190C (and keep an eye on them as they will overcook and burn very quickly if you leave them in too long). Again, place on a rack, dust with caster sugar and allow to cool.

To make these look more impressive feel free to decorate them with patterns, almond pieces etc...They will also keep in an airtight tin for a few days (probably longer but I've usually eaten them by then!)

Sweet Orange Polenta Cake...

Orange Polenta Cake - just after turning it out...

I’ve been meaning to try and make one of these for a while and the first attempt a couple of weeks ago was a limited success as it didn’t turn out of the tin. Still, the bits tasted nice so I’ve had another go…

Ingedients:

250 grams soft, unsalted butter

300 grams caster sugar

3 large eggs (beaten)

100 grams polenta

250 grams ground almonds

1tsp baking powder

2 oranges

icing sugar

Method:

In a bowl mix the polenta, ground almonds and baking powder.

Now get another bowl and cream the caster butter and sugar together before adding the eggs a bit at a time making sure it’s all well mixed.

Now slowly add the almond / polenta mix - add a bit at a time making sure it is well mixed as you go along.

Finally add the zest of the orange and half the juice. Mix well and put into a well greased cake tin. 180C for ~ 50 minutes.

Take out of the oven, prick the top well and add the remaining orange juice. Finally take the juice of another orange, heat in a pan and add icing sugar until no more will dissolve. Pour this over the top of the cake and allow to cool.

Once cool remove from tin.

p.s. Some of you may find this too sweet with all the icing. You could easily halve the orange and icing sugar mix (or forego the icing altogether) to have it less sweet.

p.p.s. Polenta also means it is anoth entry for this month's alphabakes hosted by Caroline of Caroline makes and Ros from The more than occasional baker.

Jambalaya....

Jambalaya...

...maybe? I don’t know if anyone else would consider this to be a true jambalaya but it’s near enough for me and tasty to boot. Rice, meat, veg and a nice dose of chilli and paprika. Mmmmmmmmmm... I’ll describe the one in the photo but it is very adaptable to whatever you happen to have hanging around.

Start off by slowly sweating off some onions in a deep frying pan. Really let these sweat down before adding some garlic and diced peppers and frying these also. Next add the meat. In this case I used some chilli sausages that were in the fridge and chopped them up into rough meatballs. Traditionally the meat is chicken or seafood but I don’t see why you can’t use whatever you want...Just remember to add some chilli if it’s not in with the meat! Add a good helping of paprika as well at this point and cook the meat out.

Once cooked add some white wine to deglaze the pan. Put in the rice and give it a good stir so the rice starts to absorb the flavour. Next add some chicken or vegetable stock to the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes by which time the stock will be nearly all absorbed and you have a lovely tasting jambalaya.

Part way through absorbing the stock..

Whilst it is simmering I also tend to add a little bit of finely chopped veg for extra colour and texture e.g. peas, finely diced carrot. As I said earlier, it’s a good way of using up what you have in the fridge...

Finally I've added some chopped tomato and chives over the top. Delicious!

Raspberry Puffs…

...or another thing to do with left over puff pastry.

Raspberry Puffs

Having bought some ready made puff pastry for the Tarte Tartin I had a bit left over in the fridge to use. These really are very simple:

Take the pastry and cut it into approximately 2 inch squares. Liberally make holes in the centre with a fork so that the centre doesn’t rise. Leave about a 1cm margin around the edge to rise.

In the centre put some raspberry jam and on top of that place some raspberries. 

Then pop in the oven for 10-15 mins at 220C. Only having 4 in the oven these cooked a bit too quickly and are just starting to catch. Should have got them out a couple of minutes earlier!! Oh well…

Also, as puff begins with P I’ll enter them for Alphabakes hosted by Caroline of Caroline makes and Ros from The more than occasional baker.

I was going to enter a polenta cake but that turned out to be an epic fail (or didn’t turn out as the case may be…). Still, might have another crack at that later in the week.